In the Name Of

by Niko Shahbazian

Dear You, dear border, and hye-phen, and good boi and tranny faggot, and most divine, dear Say Their Name

I am learning to love the things about me they call foreign The way my name dances on ten letters and how I carry a border on two backs

I thought home was supposed to taste sweet prunes that make a mouth curl into itself and rosewater for exhaling hands

In Iran, my mom says, it is custom to give breath to hands

In America, everything is the name of redemption

Like the way the officer says Iran and then takes my father aside for extra questioning

Like the way they say ma’am and I think they mean me

What is the name we give for sacrifice, for a rhythm of boundaries or the inhabiting of a space not made

Border between what is there and what is not

I am beautiful because I sacrificed what was there for what is (not)

What is resilient

If not the way I tremble before God before Allah before Marsha before Say Their Name before The Next One Dead before those more divine than the blood of our illusions